Effective Children's Ministry

Archive for April, 2010

This review game can be played three ways, according to the age of the children.
For preschoolers it is simply an adding on game – each correct response adds a coin to the treasure chest.
For older children it becomes a game with secret bonus points, and encourages mental arithmetic skills as they add the final scores.
The third way of playing is so exciting  that kids want to play it again and again. Will they amass a huge score with their turn, or will they go “bust”?

Here’s how it is played with the third method.
1. The child who answers correctly receives 50 points for the team. These points are immediately “banked” and cannot be lost.
2. He or she then selects as many coins as they wish. Picking one coin at a time, the value is revealed as it is chosen.
3. At any time they can stop and “bank”, what the score they have in their hand, or they can carry on. But if they choose a FAKE, they go “bust” and lose all the points in their hand from that round. They do not lose the 50 points earned from answering the question.
4. After each turn, be sure to rearrange the coins in a random way, so that the children will not learn where the high scoring coins are!
The teams get the same number of questions and the winner is the team with the highest score at the end.

Useful life applications
To counter-balance any sense of grasping for money, it is useful to spend a few minutes discussing which charities or projects the children would donate the money to, if it were real. Or, how else they might spend it for the benefit of others.

The link below will give you a PDF with full instructions (including a page showing how the game board should be laid out) and printable game pieces. All you need to do is cut out and laminate them.

To download the file, Right-Click on the link below and save to your harddrive

Download the Treasure Chest Review Game [PDF].

If you are looking for an idea for decorating your class room or club room, a  great idea has been posted by Tony Kummer at Ministry-to-Children.com.

Here’s how Tony introduces it:

To complete our new children’s church decorations, we used the children’s painted hand prints as leaves to complete the tree mural. The project was not too complicated, but it took real coordination on the part of our adult volunteers to pull it off…

There are full instructions on the site, and even a video showing every stage very clearly. It looks fun!

Seth Godin is a successful and respected entrepreneur and business author. In his blog he wrote:

I stumbled on a great typo last night. “Staff in the lobby were wondering around…”
Wandering around is an aimless waste of time. Wondering around, though, that sounds useful. Wondering why this product is the way it is, wondering how you can make the lobby more welcoming, wondering if your best customers are happily sharing your ideas with others… So many things worth wondering about, so few people actually taking the time to do it. Wondering around is the act of inquiring with generous spirit.

Colin Peckham, preacher and author once told us, “In God’s work you’ve got to have time to dream.”

In kid’s ministry we can spend time preparing our crafts, planning the décor, selecting or making our visuals, studying the lesson…and a thousand and one other good and vital things. But what a joy when we have time to dream!

A relaxing environment can be hard to come by, but if we find it, then coupled with a sanctified imagination and an intimacy with God, we can dream his dreams, catch his vision, think the impossible. As Seth Godin said, wondering around can be very useful.

He calls it his Children’s Ministry Blog Patrol. But we call it Wayne’s Bumper Bundle!

Every month Wayne Stocks, over at the Dad in the Middle blog gathers links from around the blogging world related to Children’s Ministry and issues important to those who work in Children’s Ministry.

The massive list is categorized, so you can go immediately to the sections most important to you. Wayne has gathered the “creme de la creme” of children’s ministry comment, information, free stuff, news, tips and advice.

We are honoured to have been featured on the list, but that’s not why we are sending you there! It is simply because it is a wealth of excellence for you to browse as you want.

Do visit this month’s Children’s Ministry Blog Patrol, and bookmark the post; you’ll want to visit it several times to take advantage of  the links that will benefit you and your ministry.